What obligations does a distributor or trader of clothing and textiles have?

What you must do concretely

What is expected of you

A distributor or trader is someone who offers clothing and textiles in the supply chain without being a manufacturer, importer or brand owner: think of a wholesaler, a retail chain that purchases from third parties, or an intermediary that resells goods without modifying them. The ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) imposes on these parties in Articles 30 and 31 a number of control and information obligations. This is not about compiling the product passport itself — that is the responsibility of the manufacturer or importer — but about what a distributor or trader checks and passes on before a product is placed on the market.

Check whether the product passport is present

Before a product is placed on the market, it should be checked whether a digital product passport is attached and whether the corresponding QR data carrier is on the product or packaging. For a company with 10 to 100 employees, this means in practice a control step upon receipt of goods: someone in the procurement or warehouse process scans the data carrier and checks whether the passport opens and displays the correct information. This is not a legal review of the content, but a presence check.

Verify that the legally required information is on the product

In addition to the passport itself, the question is whether the information required by the regulations is actually visible or accessible — think of what appears on the label versus what appears in the passport. For a medium-sized company, this means that quality control or procurement adds a fixed check alongside the existing checks on sizing, colour and quality of the batch.

Do not place on the market if passport or data carrier is lacking

If a product is not accompanied by the required passport or data carrier, the principle is that it is not placed on the market. This affects planning: a batch that is logistically ready for delivery but whose passport is not in order remains in practice blocked until it is. For companies operating on short delivery times, this can have a real effect on lead times.

Pass information to the next party in the chain

A distributor or trader who is aware of non-conformity — for example a missing or incorrect passport — is assumed not to let this pass silently to the next link. This requires an internal agreement about who signals this and to whom it is reported back: the company's own purchaser, the supplier, or both.

Cooperate with supervisory authorities

At the request of a supervisory authority, cooperation is expected in taking measures to remedy non-conformity, including providing relevant information and documentation. This means that a company must be able to trace from whom a batch was purchased and what documentation accompanied it — something that is often already part of an existing procurement file, but which must now also be in order from this perspective.

Where things go wrong in practice

A number of situations come up repeatedly in practice.

A wholesaler purchases from various suppliers within and outside the EU, and assumes without verification that "the passport will be included" because the supplier has promised this verbally. In a spot check, the data carrier is found to be missing or to refer to an empty or incorrect page.

A retail chain sets up control of the passport as a one-off action upon first delivery from a new supplier, but does not repeat this for subsequent deliveries from the same supplier — whereas changes in product composition can occur without the passport being updated.

A trader notices that a passport is not factually consistent with the label, but has no documented procedure for who internally reviews this and whether the batch is withheld or still delivered.

A company that itself acts as a wholesaler thinks that distributors' obligations are only relevant to the party selling directly to the consumer, and underestimates its own role in the supply chain. If you recognize yourself in this, read the precise demarcation here I am a clothing wholesaler, what are my obligations regarding the product passport.

Finally, confusion arises when a company both purchases from third parties and sells under its own brand: the role as distributor for one assortment and as brand owner for another assortment requires a different set of obligations, and that distinction is not always made in practice. For the latter, the explanation can be found at I sell clothing and textiles under my own brand — what obligations do I have?

What you can record

For a distributor or trader, it is practical to establish a number of matters structurally, not as a one-off action but as a recurring part of the procurement process:

• A fixed inspection step on goods receipt in which it is recorded whether the product passport and the QR data carrier are present, and by whom this inspection was carried out.
• An overview per supplier of who is responsible for the passport — the manufacturer, the importer, or the supplier itself as brand owner — so that if there is a deficiency, it is immediately clear who to contact. If there is doubt about this role distribution, who is responsible for the product passport of clothing and textiles? provides a starting point.
• An internal agreement on what happens if a consignment arrives without a valid passport: who decides on release, and how this is reported back to the supplier.
• Retention of correspondence and documentation regarding a detected discrepancy, so that it is available upon request from a supervisory authority.
• A file per supplier with basic data on the origin of the goods, so that traceability in the supply chain is demonstrable.

For companies that purchase goods from a manufacturer outside the EU, it is moreover important to be clear about who fulfils which role in that case, because responsibility for the passport does not automatically fall to the trader itself. This issue is addressed in my manufacturer is outside the EU — who arranges the product passport then? It is also advisable for those who sell via an online marketplace alongside their own physical trade to separately examine the obligations involved, as elaborated in what does the product passport mean if I sell clothing and textiles via an online marketplace?